


Nonage

by HirilElfwraith



Series: Bioluminescence [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Kidlock, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-08
Updated: 2013-06-20
Packaged: 2017-12-14 07:17:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/834192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HirilElfwraith/pseuds/HirilElfwraith
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nonage: noun. "youth"</p><p>Once, during one of the Holmes Family Spats™, Mycroft mailed a picture album to the flat.</p><p>A 221B ficlet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Idyllic

Once, during one of the Holmes Family Spats™, Mycroft mailed a picture album to the flat.

Sherlock didn’t realize it—John always got the mail, and since any normal boundaries had disappeared long ago, he felt justified in donning a pair of gloves and carefully opening the package. He discarded them when it became evident that the contents were harmless and, braced for any manner of images, opened the scrapbook. Something fell out, and he picked it up and glanced at it cautiously, half-expecting a snarky note. 

He was greeted with an aged Polaroid of a pale, slim child, squinting large almond-shaped eyes against the sunlight that glinted off his fair curls, dirt covering his bare feet and smudging the expensive-looking grey outfit he wore, and clutched a plush bumblebee to his chest. He wasn’t smiling—in fact, he looked almost suspicious of the photographer—but it was quite possibly one of the most adorable things John had ever seen. 

He paused, tucking the photo back into the pages. From what he could tell, the album was entirely innocent—a glance through revealed nothing more incriminating than any other childhood album—but Sherlock likely would declare it embarrassing or dull and either closet it away somewhere or destroy it.

John smiled secretively and hid it under the table by his bedside.


	2. Illusory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As it turns out, Sherlock's childhood wasn't so nice after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heere's where it all gets dark. Because you just know that Sherlock did not have a happy childhood. 
> 
> TRIGGER WARNING for brief discussion of eating disorders

When John finally got a chance to look over the album—Sherlock was god-knows-where seeking evidence for a case and not likely to return soon—it turned out to be less innocent than he thought. 

Oh, there was nothing explicitly bad—but as he flipped through the ages, when he got to the point where Sherlock appeared about seven, the family portraits, formerly shots of both parents, Mycroft and Sherlock, abruptly split up, leaving only his mother, and pictures with his father always showed him with an unfamiliar woman. 

As the years progressed, Sherlock’s hair darkened from gold to gingery auburn to brown to black, and his apparent mood changed with it. Dark circles came and went under his eyes, going from slim to unhealthily thin. He looked gaunt at twelve, nearly skeletal at thirteen, and John closed his eyes because of _course_ Sherlock would have an eating disorder. He was as close to a healthy weight as he ever was by the next yearly portrait, but by that point the cold expression was permanently fixed on his face, and when John looked closely at one of the pictures of him as he played the violin, there were the unmistakable stains of nicotine marring his fingertips.

This wasn’t a childhood. This was tragedy.

John closed the album and tucked it back.

**Author's Note:**

> Considering that Sherlock literally means "fair-haired", I doubt that two people intelligent to produce both Sherlock and Mycroft would give that name to a dark-haired baby.


End file.
